#3: The Money Issue

I know for some people they have a hard time dealing with dividing up a bill at the end of a group meal. Ryan's cousin Jessie, her boyfriend Alex and her roommate Penny are notorious for splitting everything perfectly three ways, arguing down to who pays the extra penny. Ryan and I are the people who toss in more than enough to cover everything and never ask for change. Now I am all for people paying their fair share, but I am not going to belittle the bill and whip out calculators to decide exactly how much each person owes compared to what they ate including their tax and tip. I usually round up each item, add the required tax according to which state I am in and then add on the 20% tip. So if my meal was $11.40 I call it twelve, add another dollar to cover the .93 cents for the 7.75 Nevada tax and then another $2.60 for a twenty percent tip. Sixteen dollars would cover that bill fine. But know all people just can't do this. They refuse to pay more than exactly what they owe down to the very last penny.

However Andrea and my mother brought this nickel and diming to a whole new level, complete with each of them writing down in little notebooks exactly what they were spending and saving every single receipt after arguing over each and every bill we got and who should pay what. This got to be such an issue that I, unfortunately for our servers but to protect my own sanity, started to ask for separate check everywhere we ate. This worked fine for meals but when it came to other things to pay for we hit a very annoying wall. Between them there was much bickering. Well, if I pay for this cab you can get the cab ride back. And if we don't take a cab back you can buy the water later. While they argued I often got out my wallet and just paid. This happened quite a few times and then I had to sit and listen to them complain to me how I shouldn't have to pay for everything. Hey, I was all for that but I also wasn't going to waste all my time worrying about who paid for what when.

Two big bones of contention came when we decided to take a carriage ride through the park and Andrea decided she wanted to "treat" us to lunch at Tavern on the Green. First the carriage ride. It was $40 a ride (which lasted about twenty minutes around the highlights of Central Park) plus tip. In my head I am calculating the twenty percent tip onto the forty dollars and coming up with 48 bucks. Split three ways, which is what they insisted on doing, was sixteen dollars dollars a piece. I threw in a twenty, so did my mom. Andrea gave me fifteen and asked for change.

"But you only paid fifteen. It is sixteen a piece," I stated.

"I don't think I should have to tip so much. I don't tip twenty percent," she replied.

"Well I do so you keep your five and we'll give him $50," I said.

"But that's too much," exclaimed my mother, "And I need my change!"

I let out a slight scream of frustration and dug into my purse for four singles and handed them to my mother. I then handed the fifty dollars to the driver who was exceptionally nice, very informative and kept giving me little winks and made me feel desirable since he was very cute...so maybe I wanted to give him a bigger tip. So what? He made my ride more enjoyable. But then I had to listen for the entire walk to Tavern on the Green (which was far!) about how I paid too much and they owed me money because I actually paid $24.00 for the ride and blah, blah, blah. I finally said the driver had been working in the hot sun all day and I liked his horse so he deserved the tip and told them to drop it.

When we got to Tavern on the Green Andrea insisted on treating us to lunch. I for one was not pleased about this because a) I didn't want to eat at a hoitey-toitey place that charged $32.00 for a hamburger and b) nothing on their menu appealed to me and c) we were meeting blogger friend Janine at a restaurant for dinner in only two and a half hours. My mother told me to not be a spoilsport so I ordered two sides of mashed potatoes and asparagus (to a total of almost $20.00...for side dishes!), much to our server's chagrin. Plus we had to sit outside in the garden and it was HOT. I wasn't feeling too well after that. Two and a half hours later when we met Janine for dinner and after she had gone, Andrea and my mother start arguing over the bill with Andrea insisting she should not have to pay since she paid for lunch. My mother claimed Andrea wanted to treat us which inclined no repayment for her "generosity" which is how I felt too. I finally couldn't take their bickering any more I grabbed the check and walked it up to our waitress with my money and paid the whole thing myself. Thus starting another long lecture of how I shouldn't pay for these things myself.

The final straw was the dinner we had at a nice restaurant on our last night in new York. After my mother and I got in to two ridiculous heated discussions over Chris O'Donnell's hair color (don't ask) and the fact she won't insist my brother get all of his stuff out of her house even though she complains about it all the time but won't give him an ultimatum because "she doesn't want to put him on the street" (believe me, that argument could fill an entire post itself) I was in a foul mood. So I steeled myself for the ultimate check dispute to come since we had failed to ask for separate checks when we ordered.

Sure enough the check came and the discussion began as to who owed what. I had gotten a green apple martini and pot stickers since I was not too hungry while Mom and Andrea had had full meals. My total with tip came to $22.00. I threw in twenty five since I didn't have change. I then sat there and proceeded to watch them dissect the bill and get out money, counting it over and over again and still not coming up with enough to even cover the bill much less a tip. Each insisted they put in more than enough for their share. Knowing that I certainly had myself covered I sat in amazement as they kept bickering and beating down the same points over and over. "Well I didn't get coffee so that is two fifty less for me," "Yes, but you got that fruity drink which three dollars more than my wine." I couldn't take it any more. I grabbed the check, threw a hundred dollar bill at the waitress and walked out of the restaurant. I don't know if they took my change or left it for the waitress or not (the total bill came to about eighty bucks so I hope they left the whole thing) since no one said anything to me about it. I was back at the hotel and in bed before they had returned.